Twice Shy
by Disasteriffic Kaz
Summary: Oh Sam Comment Fic: The boys run into Bela while looking for a cursed artifact and are painfully reminded why she pisses them off so much. Post 3x08 "A Very Supernatural Xmas" hurt!Sam comfort!Dean


**Title:** Twice Shy

**Author**: Disasteriffic Kaz

**Info:** Oh Sam Comment Fic: The boys run into Bela while looking for a cursed artifact and are painfully reminded why she pisses them off so much. Post 3x08 "A Very Supernatural Xmas" hurt!Sam comfort!Dean

**Author's Note:** Oh Sam Triple Play prompt fill for **road_rhythm**:  
1: A Luxury Hotel  
2: Bela, Dean  
3: Poison

This somehow came out shorter than I thought it would but all in all, I'm rather pleased with it. :P Bela…ok that was fun. LOL

**Beta'd by the Always Awesome JaniceC678 - **Friend and Muse's co-conspirator

_**Follow me on Facebook as "Disasteriffic Kaz" for frequent fic updates or just to chat!__**  
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Dean strode along the ridiculously well-appointed hotel hallway. He rolled his eyes at the gold-gilt mirrors, fake antique English furniture, and small chandeliers lighting their way. "You believe people actually live like this, dude? Like, all the time?"

Sam chuckled and shook his head. "Feels more like being in a museum than a hotel. Are you sure we're on the right floor?" He glanced down at the silent EMF meter in his hand with a raised brow.

"That Herbert dude said his room was on the fourteenth." Dean shrugged.

"Suite," Sam corrected and smirked at his brother. "He has a suite up here. I'd still like to know what he did to set it off." They were there looking for a cursed idol from ancient Babylon, at least as far as Sam was able to tell. It had been inert when Herbert Granger brought it into the hotel, but somewhere in the last couple weeks, the curse had become active and people had started dropping like flies. Herbert swore lights had flickered and there had been cold spots, so Sam's eyes were glued to the EMF just in case the object had let loose some sort of pissed off spirit to do its dirty work.

"You know cursed objects, dude. Hard to make; easy to set off." Dean rolled his eyes. "Hey, there it is." He pointed to the door marked 1403 and adjusted the strap of the bag over his shoulder. The curse box they'd brought from Bobby's weighed a ton.

"I've got the key." Sam moved up and swiped the electronic card in the lock. The light glowed green and he shoved it open. "Remember not to touch it with your bare hands."

"Dude." Dean snorted. "Trust me. I got no plans to be flayed alive by mistake." He pulled heavy work gloves from his pocket and slipped them on, watching Sam do the same. "Anything from the meter?"

Sam frowned and stepped into the spacious suite. "Needle's steady. It's registering the electrical outlets when I pass them, but that's it." He strode cautiously into the sitting room and turned toward the left-hand door and the master bedroom where Herbert had said he'd left it. "Something should be registering."

Dean jacked a salt round into the barrel of his sawed-off shotgun and scowled. "I don't like it when it's quiet."

"Somehow I knew you'd be the one to make all the noise." Bela's smooth, cultured English voice carried out of the bedroom in front of them as she came into view around the open door with a knowing grin at the elder Winchester.

"Son of a bitch." Dean glared at her and didn't lower the gun. "What the hell are you doing here, Bela?" He resisted the urge, barely, to grab his brother and shove Sam behind him. He still had a vivid memory of digging a bullet out of Sam's shoulder that Bela had left there. For that alone, she was forever off Dean's Christmas list. Add to that the fact she'd sent Gordon after them, and Bela was lucky Dean didn't just shoot her on sight.

"She's here for the cursed idol," Sam said and shook his head. "It's dangerous. People have died. You know we can't just let you walk out of here with it." He pulled his Taurus from the small of his back and pointed it at her.

"Sam. Darling." Bela pouted her lips at him. "Surely you're not still holding a grudge over that silly incident with the rabbit's foot."

Sam rolled his shoulders and gave her an unfriendly smile. "You shot me. That kind of thing stays with a guy."

Bela chuckled. "Odd. Usually when I give a man something hot and hard, he thanks me."

"Ha ha. Not funny." Sam scowled at her.

Dean smirked in spite of himself. "Dude, it was a little funny." He shook his head. "But not the point. Hand it over."

Bela made a 'tsking' sound and shook her head. "Haven't you boys learned by now that getting between me and…well, anything really…is never a good idea?" She smiled sweetly at Dean again. "No."

"Bela, I swear." Dean aimed the shotgun square at her chest and resisted the urge to appreciate the curves on display…again. "This won't kill ya, but it'll hurt like hell. It's two against one. Give it up."

Bela pouted again – and, no, those glossy red lips were not at all distracting - looking between them and sighed. "Fine. But only because you ask so nicely." She stepped away from the door into the sitting room and showed them a small bag in the hand that had been behind the door. "Curse box, of course."

Sam watched her toss the bag to Dean who caught it reflexively and looked back at Bela just in time to realize his mistake as her other hand came up out of her blouse with a long tube. "Bela, don't…" Sam grunted as a small dart stabbed into his stomach and fired his gun at the same time. Only Bela's fast reflexes saved her from losing her head as Sam's bullet sent a chunk of wood splintering millimeter's from her ear.

Dean snarled, dropped the box, and grabbed Bela. He slammed her back into the wall in a rage. "Sam?"

"Dammit." Sam pulled the dart out of his stomach and looked at it. "I'm fine…I think."

"Well, bollocks." Bela groaned and rolled her eyes.

"That's gonna cost ya, sister." Dean snarled and drew his fist back. "Had about enough of you shooting my brother and getting away with it."

Bela watched his fist with wide eyes and then shifted to look beyond him. She began to smile. "That took longer than I expected. Must be because he's so very large."

"What?" Dean didn't loosen his grip as he turned and looked at his brother in time to watch Sam drop to his knees with his hands over his stomach. "Sammy?"

"Uh…I don't…I feel weird." Sam gasped suddenly and double over with a pained moan as agony shot through his stomach and up into his chest.

"What did you do?" Dean shouted and banged her head back into the wall again.

"Careful, sweet-cheeks," Bela said and smiled as though she had no idea just how close Dean was to killing her. "Don't dent the merchandise and maybe I'll tell you how to save him on my way out the door." She nodded to the discarded box with the curse box. "With my prize."

"You bitch!" Dean nearly hit her again when he heard Sam's pained moan.

"Dean." Sam tried to straighten and couldn't as the pain spread like fire through his body. "Don't…"

Dean rolled his eyes fondly as his little brother, in the midst of whatever agony he was clearly suffering, was with it enough to stop him from killing a human because of him. "What is it? What was on the damn dart?"

"Poison." Bela said bravely and jerked her head to the side as Dean's fist slammed into the plaster next to her face. She grinned cheekily at him, and in some corner of his brain, Dean grudgingly had to admit a tiny spark respect for her fearless demeanor, even it if was just an act. That same act had carried him through more than once. "I suppose you could try sucking it out of him, but, please…let me get my camera first?"

Dean snarled, his brief moment of whatever the hell it was gone. "This is a damn joke to you?"

Bela rolled her eyes. "You know, Dean. You're really far too pretty to be this serious all the time."

Dean was torn between beating her senseless and getting to his struggling brother. His need to take care of Sam won out finally, and he shoved Bela roughly away from him. "Fine. Take the damn box but just tell me how to save him." Swirling through his mind as he dropped to his knees beside his brother was the very real fear that he could watch Sam die right here and make his sure trip to hell was meaningless. It meant nothing if Sam didn't survive. He had to live.

Bela picked up the bag and swung it over her shoulder and then stepped to the door of the suite and out into the hall. "Oh, calm down. The poison's only meant to kill pygmies. Not…" she waved a hand at Sam. "…not overgrown Neanderthals." She rolled her eyes at the glare of death Dean sent her and smiled. "I'm not a murderer, Dean. Well, not for the little stuff anyway." She pulled the door with her. "He'll be fine…probably. Bye, boys."

Dean watched the door swing shut with a click and bent to his brother. "Sammy?" He caught him when Sam toppled slowly to his side and eased him in against his chest. "Take it easy, buddy. Easy. How bad is it?"

Sam shook his head, bereft of speech for a moment with his heart pounding in his ears and every breath burning in his chest. He grasped hold of Dean's arm and squeezed hard enough he knew he had to be hurting him but Dean didn't say a word. It made Sam's eyes burn with tears knowing that, short of a miracle, he was going to lose this forever in five, all too short months.

"Breathe, Sam. Come on. Slow it down." Dean suffered for him, wondering just how many more times Sam was going to suffer because of him and knew that, in the end, this would be nothing in comparison. He wanted to say he was sorry…again, but Sam already knew. Every time he caught his brother looking at him with pain-filled, devastated eyes, he knew. Sam had already forgiven him; he just hadn't figured out how he was going to go on living without his big brother. "Shit!" Dean wrapped his arms around him when Sam gave a guttural, agonized cry and writhed against him. "No, no, no! Sam, breathe!"

He was trying; he really was. Sam worked to pull in one ragged breath after another, but the poison wasn't just burning through him anymore; it was sucking the air out of the room and felt like it was twisting things inside him that were never meant to move. He held on to Dean more frantically.

"Sam? Hold on!" Dean was at a loss. His head jerked up like a guard dog ready to kill when the door to the suite opened again, and he snarled as Bela appeared slowly around the door. "Come to watch him die, you bitch?"

Bela smiled and surprisingly had to fight to not feel just the smallest twinge of guilt when Sam cried out painfully in his brother's arms. "I said I wasn't a murderer for the little stuff." She shrugged. "The idol is little stuff. Just on the off chance that pygmy poison does manage to be potent enough for someone his size…" Bela pulled a small tube from her pocket and tossed it across the room to Dean to land beside the boys. "Antidote. Never carry a poison without one." She smiled and raised a brow when Dean just looked at it. "Use it or don't. If it were me, I wouldn't take the chance."

Dean resisted the urge to pick it up and throw it after her. Instead he took it in his hand and looked at it. It looked like a modified epi-pen. "Sam?"

Sam had heard the conversation though he wasn't able to join in, and he nodded his head in a silent plea for Dean to use it. He had the almost certain feeling that he was dying, that, contrary to Bela's belief, the poison was going to kill him. He couldn't have explained it even if he'd been able to speak, but he could feel his body beginning to shut down and give up. He tightened his grip on Dean's arm again, trying and failing to swallow another agonized shout.

"Ok. Ok, buddy." Dean said softly. He popped the cap off the pen and held it over Sam's thigh for a moment, considering. Bela was a bitch and a liar and had screwed them more than once, but she did seem to have some odd code of her own that she lived by. He had to believe that saving her life last month had earned them something with her. He didn't have a choice. "Here we go." He jabbed the needle into Sam's leg and pressed the button. Dean held it firmly in place while holding on to Sam with the other and trying to stop him from curling out of his grasp to the floor. "Easy." He heard the slight hiss of the medicine, the antidote, being released into the meat of Sam's thigh and waited a full ten seconds before he pulled it free and tossed it aside.

Dean got both arms around Sam again and pulled him in, curving one hand over his brother's forehead to try and hold him still as he writhed and gasped. The small grunts of pain hurt Dean almost as much as the screams, but he noticed the moment they were gone, and then Sam's entire body seemed to go boneless and collapse in against him. "Sam? Sammy!" Dean rolled him into his chest and pulled his head around to see his face, fearing that he'd been wrong to trust her and he'd just killed his little brother. "Sam!"

Sam's eyes fluttered slowly open and focused on Dean's face. "H…hey." His voice was a low whisper but just loud enough.

Dean felt weak with relief and shamelessly pulled Sam in against him, just holding on to him. "Son of a bitch," he breathed into Sam's hair and stared hard at the door where Bela had left. They stayed that way for a few moments until Sam pushed at his shoulder weakly and Dean let him lean back. "How you feelin' now?"

Sam coughed softly and nodded, closing his eyes. "Like…like crap."

Dean smiled a brittle, stressed smile and nodded. "You think you can walk if I get you up?"

Sam nodded slowly and curled his hands into Dean's jacket. "Prob…probably."

"Ok. Here we go." Dean had to extricate himself from Sam's body and then finally got slowly to his feet, taking Sam with him as carefully as he could. Sam was panting for breath and leaning heavily on him by the time they were both standing. "Sam?"

"Good. M'good." Sam assured him though he wasn't able to straighten up. The pain in his stomach from where the dart had hit him was still there, and he imagined that it probably would be for some time. "Crap, that h…hurt." He looked up at Dean from where he hung off his shoulder and smirked. "Really…really hate that…that bitch."

"That's my boy, Sammy." Dean grinned and got a firmer grip around his brother. He pulled him in a slow stagger from the room, letting Sam set the pace and didn't take a real breath again until he had Sam safely back in the Impala, leaning against the front passenger window where he belonged. He blew out a breath and looked around the hotel's parking lot. Bela had been wise and looked to have taken off. It was a good thing as Dean would have damn well shot her. He smirked. He might not have killed her, but he would have enjoyed returning the bullet she'd left in Sam.

Dean rounded the car and got behind the wheel. He listened to the engine rumble to life and heard a soft sigh from his brother. "Sam?"

"I'm good," Sam said. His voice was heavy with weariness and he rolled his head over to look at his brother. "Kinda feel like I got kicked in the stomach though."

Dean chuckled and pulled away from the hotel. He stretched an arm over the seat and rested a hand on the side of Sam's neck in an age-old gesture of comfort, smiling when Sam shifted his head back into the pressure and closed his eyes. "Get some rest. I'll wake you when we get back to the motel."

Sam nodded and didn't push off Dean's hand, allowing himself to take the comfort that he worried would be gone soon. He breathed in sharply and denied that line of thought even as it hurt him.

"Easy, Sammy," Dean said softly as he felt tension sing through his brother's neck under his hand. "You sure you're ok? We can hit up a clinic if you…"

"No, I'm good." Sam said softly and kept his head turned away. He wasn't sure he could hide the look on his face right then. "Just…hurts."

Dean nodded, drove on and kept his hand on Sam, squeezing gently. He wasn't stupid. He knew, and he did the only thing he could. He held onto him.

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_The End. _


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